


Falling For You

by SierraBravo



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Has a Vulva (Good Omens), Aziraphale fell, Brief Smut, Crowley Has a Penis (Good Omens), Demon Aziraphale (Good Omens), Idiots in Love, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Spouses, M/M, Other, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), canon-typical emotional incompetence, post-nocalypse, reasonably fast burn, they may expand and diversify further, well aziraphale will fall
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2020-11-28 03:57:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20960087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SierraBravo/pseuds/SierraBravo
Summary: Crowley fell, once when he was cast out of Heaven, and once again in Eden, when he met God's most perfect angel. Now, some six millennia later, he's finally almost getting around to doing something other than pining about his feelings, and it doesn't go, well, quite according to his great and at least halfway effable plan.





	1. Pining

It was downright sinful what Aziraphale's mouth could do to a dessert fork. The way his tongue would peek out to lick the last remnants of fluffy mousse and viscous chocolate sauce, making sure he didn't miss the slightest bit, and his lips closing around a new bite made Crowley wonder what else they could, theoretically, close around. The sin was Crowley's, and it was lust. Had there currently been anything of note in his trousers, he would have been quite physically uncomfortable. As it was, he was frustrated and enjoying himself immensely in equal measure.

Displays like this, he thought, were all too indecent for the Ritz. Not that the angel would know. Not that he could _tell_ him. 

"Crowley, my dear, are you quite all right?" Aziraphale asked, and Crowley realised he was looking back at him.

"Ng," he replied, rather eloquently, he thought, given the current state of his mind.

"Only, your, ah, _true nature_ is starting to show."

Aziraphale leaned across the table, reaching a hand up and stroking soft fingers across Crowley's cheekbone and utterly wrecking whatever remained of the demon's composure. He stared at Aziraphale's hand as it retreated, wishing, _praying_ that it would return. It did not. He tore his eyes from it as it came to rest beside Aziraphale's now empty plate. 

The angel was looking at him with some urgency, he realised, as his eyes rose, slow as a torrent of honey, to Aziraphale's eyes. Worried crinkles encircled warm hazel grey, in which a chandelier was reflected rather fetchingly. 

"Whuh?" Crowley managed.

"Sca- _scales_, my dear," Aziraphale said, the key word a sharp whisper.

Crowley frowned, a hand rising to touch where his face could still feel the ghost of angel fingers. Skin, skin, skin, and, ah- yes. Scales. Unfortunate.

"Hnn. Yu- yep. Right. I'll, uh, get on that," he muttered coherently, concentrating on letting his more obviously inhuman traits fade.

It wasn't often that his, as Aziraphale called it, True Nature managed to shine through his human veneer. Well, other than the eyes, but he had that covered. Sunglasses, and, should some human notice, he could tell them they were fancy contact lenses, these days. The scales were another matter. He got lazy sometimes. Well, he was a demon and a snake, he got lazy quite frequently, but sometimes, specifically, the part of his humanity that had to be conjured was just a little bit unfocused. Skin often did not quite look like skin in the places his clothing covered. Sometimes his snakeskin boots were also his snakeskin feet. It wasn't like the humans could _tell_, so what was the harm? But this? Scales on his face? In public? This was, quite definitely, Aziraphale's fault. It was also worrying.

"Crowley, you look a bit stressed, my boy. Shall we retire to the bookshop? I've got a lovely bottle of red I've been waiting on you to break open."

Fuck. The angel was more of a tempter than he himself had been, and he'd tempted original sin into being.

"Nn," he replied, and nodded when the angel stared at him in confusion.

Crowley drove them back to the shop slower than he usually would, although still fast enough to worry Aziraphale. It wasn't proper driving, he reasoned, if the angel didn't disapprove. But he needed time to think. The Bentley, helpfully, played Somebody to Love on repeat, however much Crowley attempted to change the song, or, even, turn it off. 

Crowley had loved Aziraphale since Eden. He knew this. He was even close to accepting it, but it was still... Inconvenient. He wasn't meant to love, that was one thing, but it hadn't stopped him for long. He certainly wasn't meant to love an angel, the enemy. But that had also gone right out the window the second Aziraphale told him he'd given his flaming sword to the humans and sheltered him from the first ever rain with his wing. That moment had replayed itself in Crowley's mind innumerable times. 

But it was. No. It was no good. For one thing the angel certainly didn't love him, no more than he loved all creatures on the Earth. All God's creatures, he supposed. But when had God ever done anything for them? when had God done more than press the on switch and sat back to watch history unfold in front of her? 

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that the angel was so good and perfect and loveable. It wasn't fair that Crowley had fallen, that he had lost his chance to love the angel before he even met him. It wasn't fair that Aziraphale could just _touch_ him like that and his mind would just turn into a gelatinous lump wobbling uselessly inside his skull.

The Bentley, being used to its owner, navigated back to the bookshop largely without Crowley's intervention, and parked itself neatly, if illegally outside. Crowley blinked. He looked at Aziraphale.

"What is going on, Crowley?"

Aziraphale was looking back at him, worry in his eyes, a hand hovering, as if not certain whether a reassuring touch would help or harm. Crowley was quite sure it would do both.

"Just. Lot on my mind, is all. You mentioned wine?"

Crowley was skilled at deflection, and managed to keep the conversation far away from any topics even close to feelings of any kind that evening. It wasn't difficult, not really. He asked Aziraphale about some new books he'd recently got his hands on, and that was the next hour. Mostly he listened. Mostly he kept himself from staring at that bright smile, the light pink flush from the wine. The way the angel's fingers curled delicately around the stem of the wine glass. The warm light that caught the angel from behind, turning white blonde curls into a halo. The way love radiated from the angel almost visibly. He wondered whether, if he let himself return to his snake shape, he would be able to see the glow of it.

When he returned to his flat that evening he flung himself onto his bed, manifesting an effort in the process. He needed some form of release, and if visions of a certain luminous angel floated behind his eyes, well, nobody needed to know. After coming, clenching hard around his own fingers, imagining them being less bony and thin, less demonic, less _him_, he shed his skin. He also shed his hair, and limbs, and opaque eyelids. Curling into a spiral of softly gleaming scales on his bed, flicking the heat lamp above it on with a minor miracle, he tried to sleep.


	2. Contemplations on the Nature of Snakes and Their Emotional Impact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale has Thoughts

Aziraphale loved Crowley. Not just in the way any good angel should have love for all things, but in a romantic way. In a way that meant he spent a lot of their time together gazing lovingly at the demon, who, thankfully, did not seem to notice. It was not, as such, that Aziraphale thought the demon would be put off by his love. In fact, Aziraphale had known for quite some time and with supernatural certainty that Crowley loved him back. It was one of the perks of being an angel.

He couldn't recall the first time he had felt Crowley's love. It was, certainly, a very long time ago. Sometimes it felt like a wave; Crowley would saunter into the bookshop, and Aziraphale would almost be floored by it, by the unwavering strength and depth of it, and, when his mind recovered, impressed at how cool and unaffected the demon managed to act, when such a thin frame should hardly be able to contain so much affection. Other times, they would be in the middle of a conversation, enjoying a nice meal together, and subtle hints of it would waft across the table like a hint of the demon's cologne. And Aziraphale would soak it up, bask in it like a- well, like a Crowley in a particularly nice sunny spot.

It had taken quite some time before Aziraphale had realised that the love was of the romantic kind. They didn't as such _feel_ distinctly different. Love, after all, was love. It had been, Aziraphale thought, in 1601 AD, during that desolate performance of Hamlet (which had still, Aziraphale maintained to this day, been excellent), that he had begun to realise that perhaps the reason Crowley sought him out was more to do with wanting to see him than with avoiding work. And yet. And yet that had been 440 years, three months and seven days before Aziraphale truly realised he loved him back in that same way.

He had spent a good amount of time rationalising away Crowley's love. For the first while he thought that, well, after he Fell, after he had been in Hell, then surely he would latch onto the first kindness he was shown. That, and the, to his serpentine demonic eyes, betrayal of god. Of course, all Aziraphale had done was try to be kind. It was, as far as he was concerned, what he was created to be. But he could see how it appeared to Crowley. Especially after he, over a couple of particularly nice bottles of early wine, had admitted to lying to God's face about what had happened to the souls. Crowley- Well, Crawly, then, still, had greatly enjoyed that.

Later, Aziraphale had told himself that who Crowley loved wasn't really _him_, it was the _idea_ of him. The ideal angel. That Crowley loved Aziraphale simply because he was the closest the demon would ever come to being allowed Heaven's grace again. That in Crowley's mind, despite the plentiful evidence to the contrary, Aziraphale was the perfect angel, the very picture of celestial power and love. Aziraphale had, also despite the growing pile of evidence, believed this to be Crowley's motivation for infatuation for quite a while.

And Crowley, well. Crowley had tried his best, the angel thought, to show him that he really did love him, in a sort of denial fuelled and subtle way. Always showing up to save him, bringing him things, bringing him to things. Being as affectionate as a demon still in the employ of Hell could allow themselves to be. Which explained, Aziraphale thought, the snake thing.

It was hardly news to the angel that Crowley was a snake; that was, after all, the form he had had when they first met. But lately (and by lately the angel meant the last few decades, time being subjective, after all, and, possibly, not entirely real) the demon had spent more of their time together as a snake. He'd explained it away, said he had always needed to spend a certain amount of time as a snake, that it was some sort of occult and/or biological imperative. Aziraphale, however, had his own theory. 

Snakes needed outside sources of warmth, that was a common side effect of being cold blooded. This, the demon also added to his excuses. Excuses for why he needed that particular spot in the window where the sun hit just right, and if he happened to scare away Aziraphale's customers for him, well, that was a bonus for them both. Excuses for why, when the sun wasn't out, Aziraphale himself was the best heat source. 

He'd do it slow, subtle, hoping, perhaps, for the angel not to notice. Slither up the back of the chair, down onto the angel's shoulder, coils drooping slowly down onto him, his head burrowing under Aziraphale's collar. And Aziraphale, always one to indulge his demon, his wily serpent, would wait until he could be reasonably certain Crowley was asleep before he started petting him. Just soft light touches, feeling the smooth, dry scales, enjoying being able to be close to Crowley, even if he had to be a sleeping serpent to allow himself this.

There had been reasons, before, hadn't there? Good reasons to keep their distance from each other. Heaven and Hell and the fear of retribution. But now. But now. There shouldn't really be anything keeping them apart, these days, should be nothing standing in their way, other than themselves. And they were, it seemed, rather immovable objections, at least so far.

Aziraphale had hoped, in vain, it would seem, that after the world didn't end, after their respective sides had been dealt with, that Crowley would simply sweep him off his feet and into a kiss. That after their celebratory dinner at the Ritz he would fish a key card out of his pocket, waggle it temptingly in the air and suggest they go up to the suite he had miraculously secured them to _celebrate_ further. And Aziraphale would blush and protest, of course, but he would go with him, and there would be more champagne, possibly with strawberries in it, and a sumptuous bed, and a sudden lack of clothes... 

At least, that had been his fantasy as they toasted the world, but in reality, Crowley had just smiled at him, fondly, and driven him home to the bookshop. And there was nothing _wrong_ with that, it was what it had always been like between them. Aziraphale just selfishly hoped for something more. He knew, really, that it was what they both wanted, but he didn't want to overwhelm Crowley. The demon had a tendency to turn into a snake for a few months to mope, if startled. Or take a nap for a few decades, and, really, as close as they had gotten over the last eighty years or so, Aziraphale didn't think he could take being away from him for so long. Even the week it had been since last they had had dinner and drinks together was pushing his limits, he felt. Perhaps it was, in the end, his turn to take the initiative.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so dang long, I've just mostly had ideas for later parts of the fic and been writing those, and then having to fill in the middle parts first has been... Challenging.


	3. Angelic Proclamations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale does the thing.

"Crowley!"

Aziraphale's voice, even through the tinny sound of Crowley's phone's speakers, sounded like sunshine. Purifying and deafening and divine.

"Hi Angel," he replied, keeping himself from swearing aloud as a pedestrian nearly dented the Bentley with their puny body in an ill-fated attempt to cross the street, "what's up?"

"Well! Well, I was wondering if you would like to join me tonight for dinner. Just here, at the bookshop, I mean. I've gotten hold of some exquisite wine, and I've just discovered a lovely new restaurant that does take-aways. Are you free?"

"Oh," he drawled, pretending at cool detachment, "I'd have to check."

"Oh," the angel replied, sounding slightly disappointed, and Crowley swore at himself under his breath.

"But you know," he added hastily, "it's nothing that can't be cancelled. I'll see you at seven?"

"Oh! Oh, that's splendid, Crowley! I look forward to it!"

Fuck, what he wouldn't do for that angel. He knew Aziraphale manipulated him sometimes, that he knew as well as Crowley did that those sad puppy eyes could make him do almost anything. Crowley didn't mind. In fact, it was one of the proofs of Aziraphale's bastardous tendencies, and something Crowley loved about him. In fairness, though, there were very few parts of Aziraphale that Crowley didn't love. 

\--

Aziraphale, as a rule, did not spend a long time getting ready in the morning. In part this was because he could perform miracles, but the fact that he did not sleep more than perhaps a short nap every other decade or so also helped. He had looked much the same for at least the last century, and, were he being honest, at least the last two, and so it was, really, a wonder that he had now spent at least half an hour in front of his wardrobe mirror being filled with doubt. He wanted to look good. He wanted to look good for Crowley. Of course, they had known each other for 6023 years, and, so, had seen each other in every state imaginable, from the worst to the best. Logically, there was no reason why Crowley would reject him for not looking his absolute best, whatever that might entail. Still, the angel worried.

To be on the safe side, he ordered the food two hours before he was expecting Crowley, walking the ten or so minutes to the restaurant to pick it up rather than have it delivered, in the hopes that a short stroll might calm his nerves. It did not. Now here he was, at a quarter to six, food steaming on the table. It would would take a minor miracle for the food to still be hot by the time the demon got there, and so one was performed.

He picked up a book, started to read, and then put it down again after having read the same paragraph three times without managing to absorb as much as a single letter. This was silly. Angels weren't supposed to get nervous, although, of course, he had always been an exception to that rule. But he shouldn't have to be, not about this, surely? He knew Crowley loved him. He knew he loved Crowley. He knew neither Heaven nor Hell particularly cared what they got up to these days, so what on Earth was the problem? His corporation was being particularly unhelpful, showing all the signs of nerves human bodies usually did: Sweaty palms, high pulse, an unreasonably upset stomach and a lack of ability to concentrate. 

"Traitor," Aziraphale muttered to it. 

He rose, and started to pace around the shop, intending to clear up the books customers looked at but never replaced in their proper spot. This did not have the desired effect, however, as he was far too distracted to do a much better job than his less than competent and caring customers, and accidentally shelved Cicero next to Brontë. He was a mess. His emotions were a mess. His bookshop was a mess. 

The angel fretted so hard, and for so long, that he fail to hear the welcoming ding of the little bell above the door when Crowley came in, and it took the demon's hand on his shoulder to rouse him from the deep and consuming concern that perhaps he ought to have waited another century or so.

"Angel? You all-right there?"

"Gnhbn," Aziraphale replied, jumping only a little, "yes, hello. Crowley! Hello, yes, dear, just. Lost in thought."

The demon's eyebrows rose above his sunglasses, but he graciously didn't comment further. Instead, he sniffed the air, and then flicked out a forked tongue to taste it, probably unaware of the effect that sight was currently having on Aziraphale.

"Dinner smells nice," he said, and wandered in the direction of the smell, leaving Aziraphale to stutter useless half words to himself.

They dined without talking about anything important. Well, not important to what Aziraphale had on his mind, at the very least, though the food was very good. At one point Crowley, in an attempt to lick the sauce off his chopstick, wrapped his tongue around it nearly four times, which led Aziraphale to thoughts Heaven would frown upon.

"You seem like you've got something on your mind, Angel."

They had settled onto the most comfortable and least antique of Aziraphale's sofas. They sat at either end, but it was a short sofa, and Aziraphale was deeply aware that their thighs were mere inches from touching, although that was more to do with Crowley's preference for sprawling on furniture rather than sitting, than it was the size of the thing.

"Ah," he said, "yes. Well."

He paused for a few moments, and Crowley squinted suspiciously at him.

"What? Angel, that's your I have bad news face. Or possibly the I am about to do something very stupid face," Crowley accused, and took a sip of his wine, "they're very similar."

Aziraphale, though righteously offended, did not reply. He would only get defensive, and that wasn't going to help. The demon had a tendency to go off and sulk for weeks when they had a fight, and Aziraphale didn't want to have to wait. Not for this. Not any more. They had done plenty of that already.

"Well," Aziraphale began again, and Crowley grimaced at him, in a way clearly intended to be mocking, but which Aziraphale at this point found endearing.

"I've been wanting to talk to you about this for- for some time, now. Just about, well. A number of decades. But it never seemed like the right time, you see. And then, what with the, ah, the world not ending, and such, I thought you might, but it's been nearly a year, now, and you haven't, so.. So this is me. Bringing it up."

"Angel," Crowley said, eyebrows raised, "you're being delightfully vague, but please get to the point."

Aziraphale took a deep breath, which he didn't need, and a large gulp of his wine, which he needed very badly indeed. This was it.

"Crowley, I-" was as far as he got before faltering.

He stared into Crowley's eyes, the yellow of them both comforting and unsettling in their undivided attention. The most familiar eyes in the world to him, but in this moment suddenly far harder to read.

"What, Angel?" Crowley asked, again, his voice softer now, seeming to sense just how difficult this was for the angel.

"Crowley, do you trust me?"

"Uh," Crowley said eloquently, "yeah, suppose so. Why?"

"Could you, ah, possibly just- just close your eyes for a few moments?"

Crowley's eyes narrowed, but not in compliance.

"Why?"

Aziraphale sighed, equally fond and exasperated, which was a combination of emotions he often felt around the demon.

"Just trust me."

"Right. Whatever you say, Angel."

And he did. And Aziraphale took another deep and steadying breath, and then he leaned across the sofa and kissed Crowley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't fathom why these chapters are so short, all my other fics I prefer each chapter to be at least 2.5k words because otherwise it's just not worth it to read, but this is just. It's really slow going. Burnt myself out a bit on writing the other two good omens fics, I think, updating so frequently. Writing now harder again. Also, bet eight thirty in the morning is the least strategic possible time to post, but here we are. Follow up to, hopefully, follow soon.


	4. Thoughts are had by Multiple Ethereal/Occult Beings, on the Nature of Their Relationship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confessions and Their Aftermaths

Soft thin lips against his, sliding his fingers into Crowley's hair, the warmth of two bodies pressed together. It was everything Aziraphale had wanted it to be. Or at least it was, for the first two seconds or so, until it suddenly wasn't. Until Crowley suddenly wasn't. Aziraphale opened his eyes. Aziraphale sighed.

"Crowley," he said, flatly, at the roughly Crowley height long black snake now writhing on the sofa, slithering towards the edge.

"My dear," Aziraphale continued, "none of that, now."

He scooped the wriggling demon up in his arms, and, with some difficulty, draped him around his neck a few times like an angry and uncooperative scarf. Crowley hissed, showing off more fangs than any reasonable snake should have. Aziraphale stroked a careful finger over Crowley's head, just between his eyes. Crowley looked as if he would very much would like to squint at the angel suspiciously, and was prevented only by his often seemingly tenuous grip on serpentine anatomy. 

"You don't get to run away from this conversation, I'm afraid, but if you'd like to have it in this form, then that's your choice."

Crowley hissed again, and burrowed his head down into the chest pocket of Aziraphale's coat. It only barely fit, and looked both ridiculous and uncomfortable, but Aziraphale knew Crowley well enough not to feel the need to point it out.

"Well," Aziraphale, clasping his hands, unclasping them, and then starting softly pet the smooth scales of Crowley's coils.

"The thing is," he continued, finding it somewhat easier now that there weren't any confrontational eyes to look lovingly into, and feeling rather guilty about this, "that I love you."

Crowley tensed, but didn't hiss anything in reply. Aziraphale gave him a few moments, but evidently the old serpent was going to let him talk.

"And I think, possibly, that you feel somewhat the same way about me. Not to be presumptuous, you understand, but the fact is, we angels can feel love. I don't know if you remember? You don't talk about your time before you, ah, changed employers, as it were, and that's your choice, of course, but if you ever need to, just know that I am always here for you. But, no, no, that's not what this is about, is it? Ah. Well, to be frank, I hadn't planned out what I was going to say, I rather expected you would have interrupted me by now."

This was blatantly untrue. Aziraphale had planned what he was going to say in great detail, but he had simply never managed to decide on anything that felt right, felt good, felt good _enough_. Crowley remained unnervingly still. Usually when he lay like this, coiled around the angel's neck, he would move in little ways when he was awake, just tiny flicks of his tail or shifts of parts of him, but not now. Aziraphale had his full attention, he realised. He swallowed hard, and leaned forward, careful not to dislodge Crowley, to get his wineglass.

"So, yes, ah- Where was I? You. Yes. I love you. I have for quite some time, really. Well, I suppose I have always loved you, to some extent. Since talking to you in Eden. You were really awfully nice that day, you know, I know you don't like the word, but you were. Kind. And it wasn't long, you can't deny it, it wasn't long before I could feel it back from you, you know. Some sort of love, of warmth. You were glowing with it, beneath all the-" he gestured vaguely for the benefit of no one, "the- the darkness and sulphur and pretence at evil."

Crowley hissed indignantly.

"Oh, _now_ you're weighing in. Well, I- I mean it, Crowley. You have been kind to me, over the years. You have been kind to others, too. Oh, think of it as disobeying orders, if that helps. Or doing kind things to the ones Heaven decided did not deserve kindness. Rebellious kindness, perhaps. That's rather a good sin, I should think. Satisfies both."

He took another sip of his wine, and then lifted one of Crowley's coils up just enough so that he could press the lightest of kisses to the cool scales. Crowley made an unintelligible sort of noise, rather like he sometimes did as a human. Other, more tech-savvy people than Aziraphale might have described it as the biological equivalent of a computer error message.

"At any rate, I started to understand these last few centuries, that perhaps there were, ah, romantic undertones to the love I was feeling from you. Just by comparison, you see, to the way love wafts off those gripped by romantic passion. Rather similar a feeling. And I- I'm afraid it took me a little while to catch up to you. You've always seemed to be able to throw yourself into anything, any time, any crowd, any era. I quite envy you that ability, you know? I've always felt myself quite firmly on the outside. Which we are, of course, in a sense."

Crowley hissed a disagreement.

"Oh, well now, enjoying the creations of humanity is hardly the same as feeling a part of them, my dear. But yes. It was, I think, some four centuries ago that I realised with a final sort of certainty what your feelings for me seemed to be. And then, oh, eighty years ago now, that I finally realised I felt the same way about you."

Crowley hissed in confused protest.

"Oh, yes, I agree completely. I was likely feeling that way a long while before, only I didn't understand, you see. Hadn't anything to compare it to. There's never been anyone else. How could there have been? It's quite literally unique, what we have. Our almost infinitely long... friendship, shall we call it, diplomatically."

Crowley hissed questioningly.

"Oh, that. Well, I was afraid, that is it, quite simply. I was afraid of what Hell would do to you. And, I suppose, to some extent, what Heaven would do to me. But mostly- mostly the first thing, yes. And, frankly, I rather had expected you be the one to, well, make the first move, as it were. There was a moment when I thought you were going to. It was a few years ago, when we were looking after Warlock. You came to my little cottage at the edge of the property, late late that night, still in your work clothes, still with your hair like that. You know, that was a very good look for you. Not, of course, that all of them aren't. But still. You asked me for whatever alcohol I had and we got drunk together. Sat closer and closer, and I thought you almost... Well."

_I almost did_, Crowley hissed.

Snakes didn't have much in the way of inflection, but Crowley almost sounded regretful. 

"Oh," said Aziraphale, his heart flooding with a feeling he couldn't quite identify.

A longing, perhaps, for the handful of years they might have had. For a fantasy nearly fulfilled. He had daydreamed, back then, of a situation somewhat like that. Of him and Crowley still taking care of Warlock, still influencing him for each of their sides, but doing so together. Just the two of them, no Americans, no sprawling estate, no service staff of security guards. Just a cottage, quite like the one Brother Francis occupied, only with a room for the boy. Perhaps a larger and more well used bed for him and Crowley... It was so- so _human_ he felt embarrassed just thinking about it, and it was certainly not something he was about to shared with Crowley, but something within him hurt at the thought he could have been just a little bit closer to it if only one of them had _done something_.

_Aziraphale?_ Crowley hissed.

"Yes, dear? Oh! Oh, sorry. Just. Just thinking."

He ran a hand across Crowley's scales, to ground himself, to have a moment to think.

"So I suppose, what I am saying, summed up, as it were, is that I love you, Crowley, in every way imaginable, and I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that."

Crowley, without any sort of warning, quite suddenly ceased to be a snake, and started being a roughly human shaped being instead. He did so without moving, which had the effect of him laying curled awkwardly around Aziraphale's neck, a hand stuck into the angel's coat pocket, and his spine bent in a way most normal human spines would shudder at. Aziraphale, startled by this, dropped his wineglass. It landed upright on the table a metre away, without having spilled a single drop. The glass had seen Crowley get angry, and knew better than to disappoint him.

"Thoughts?" Crowley spluttered.

"You kiss me and tell me you love me _and you wonder if I have thoughts?!_"

He untangled himself from Aziraphale and slid gracelessly down the back of the sofa.

"Well, do you?" Aziraphale asked, in what he felt was a reasonable tone of voice.

"Of course I have fucking thoughts on that, you great big angelic idiot!" Crowley accused from the floor behind the sofa.

"Well," Aziraphale asked, "are you going to sha-"

"Give me a bloody moment, will you?" Crowley growled.

Aziraphale smiled apologetically and put up his hands in a gesture of deference, again for the benefit of no one. There were noises, and Crowley appeared again, flopping down on the more conventionally used side of the sofa with, if possible, even less grace than the other way around.

"Right," Crowley said, his eyes fully yellow and boring into Aziraphale, "these are my thoughts."

And then he grabbed the angel's face, and smooshed it into his own, mouths first. It was not the second kiss of romance novels, nor the first. It was inelegant and not, frankly, that physically pleasant, but emotionally it was all encompassing, perfect, divine and infernal in equal degrees. It was Crowley kissing him, Crowley's tongue in his mouth, so much longer, he realised, than he had fully appreciated while it remained outside of him. It was warm hands on his face, in his hair. It was Crowley letting Aziraphale pull him halfway into his lap, and the effort Aziraphale had made for if the evening went well pulsing and signalling its readiness for whatever sins Crowley might want to do to Aziraphale. The angel rather hoped it was most of them.

Crowley pulled away after what was either minutes or hours, Aziraphale couldn't quite be sure. He wanted to look at Crowley's face forever, but he also very much wanted kiss him again, and to get his hands properly into that beautiful hair.

"Good," Aziraphale said intelligently, "Good thoughts. I think they might be compatible with mine."

"Yeah?" Crowley said, and he looked like he had something to add, but Aziraphale interrupted him with another kiss.

Aziraphale had imagined many possible scenarios for how the evening could turn out, but in his favourite, which, with the exception of his lengthy rant while Crowley was a snake, had been roughly accurate up to and including the kissing, it had ended with Crowley ravishing him. He had thought that the demon had many _sinfully_ delightful ideas that they could try. But that hadn't happened. Instead, after some more (very enjoyable) kissing, Crowley had asked if there was a bed in the flat above the shop. Which had kept Aziraphale's rather naughty hopes up, but it turned out that Crowley had a different definition of sleeping together, at least for the time being. Which was how Aziraphale found himself five chapters into Pride and Prejudice with Crowley's head resting in his lap, an arm thrown over his thighs. It was nice. It was very nice. It allowed him, for once, to read a romance novel without the sort of desperate longing he usually had to try not to think about. The person he longed for was right there. Admittedly being unconscious half on top of someone wasn't quite how Aziraphale imagined Crowley expressing his love, but based on how he spent so much time around Aziraphale's neck as a sleeping snake, perhaps this was what he should have expected. He ran a hand through Crowley's hair, messed up with sleep and kissing, and thought to himself that it was fine, it was good. They had all the time in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting to the point of it soon now, I promise.


	5. Aziraphale Horny

When Crowley woke up, his head was still in Aziraphale's lap, which was a relief, as he, deep in the receding haze of sleep, had worried that the previous night had been a dream. But no. No. Soft and warm tartan pyjama covered lap. A hand resting on his shoulder. The sound of a page turning, and small frustrated noises at having to do so one handed. Crowley thought this might be the best moment of his life, although the kissing the previous night and Aziraphale's confession of love were strong contenders also.

He couldn't quite believe it. Couldn't believe that Aziraphale had told him he loved him. He didn't deserve it, of course, not in the slightest, but he was selfish and demonic enough that he would enjoy it all the same. However long it would last, whatever form it might take. He shifted, settling himself a little more comfortably. Had he had a normal human neck and spine they would have felt horrid after sleeping in this awkwardly bent position, but he saw no reason he should feel anything but wonderful after sleeping like this, and so that was how he felt. Still, perhaps there could be less reading happening and two of those very good very warm hands on him.

"Good morning, dear," Aziraphale said, then, his voice like sunshine on a cold day, like the smell of baked goods right out of the oven, like soft fluffy white wings ready to protect you.

Crowley murmured something mostly unintelligible into the fabric of Aziraphale's pyjama bottoms in reply, then shifted, pushing himself up on an elbow and looking up at his angel. Radiant. Divine. Slightly amused looking.

"Sleep well?"

"Never better," Crowley replied with a grin, and pressed a kiss to the closest available part of Aziraphale, which at that moment was his chest.

-

They settled into a sort of rhythm. Crowley would disappear most days, for a few hours, doing whatever he did. Minor mischief. Traffic crimes. Plant harassment. But he would come back, always, in the afternoon or evening, to the bookshop, and would usually bring something delightful he had picked up from a bakery, or some steaming boxes of dinner. They would eat. Or, well, mostly Aziraphale would. Crowley would pick at everything, tasting it all, but never consuming much, preferring wine. But he would watch Aziraphale eat, as he always had. Aziraphale wasn't quite sure what Crowley got out of it, but he enjoyed eating, and he greatly enjoyed Crowley's company, and had always been happy to combine the two. It was almost like before, but they would sit comfortably close, now, and interrupt each other sometimes with kisses. And usually at some point, Crowley would fall asleep, draped over Aziraphale in some way, as he read. It was nice. It combined all Aziraphale's favourite things: food, Crowley, and reading. It was good. It was lovely. It was perfect. Aziraphale still wanted more.

He had tried to bring it up, once or twice, but somehow Crowley always distracted him away from the topic. It was odd, the angel thought, as he had imagined, being a demon, Crowley would be rather in favour of a sin like what Aziraphale quite clearly had in mind. Perhaps he didn't find Aziraphale's corporation enticing in that way. It was certainly something Aziraphale had worried about, but the demon had been so physically affectionate, and his looks so adoring, and so the angel doubted, somehow, that this was the problem. Perhaps the demon simply was not interested in such activities? It was possible. Which would be fine. Of course that would be fine. Better than fine, great. Aziraphale loved Crowley with everything he had, and just being near him was a reward.

-

Crowley desperately wanted his angel. Wanted him in every way possible, however the angel would take him. But he worried. This was not, in and of itself, unusual. Despite his frantic attempts to give the impression that he had not a care in the world, Crowley cared and worried almost constantly about a lot of things. One of them was Aziraphale. Another of them was himself. Specifically; would Aziraphale want him? The signs, he had to admit, pointed to yes. Demons couldn't sense love like angels could, but they could sense sin, and it was something he had felt radiating off the angel these last few weeks. He had felt it from him before, of course, but he had never imagined it was directed at _him_. Probably, he had thought, the angel was just horny in general, and, given his tendencies to loyalty to Heaven, wasn't getting it on a lot. Still. Still. What would an angel, a principality, no less, see in a demon? 

Aziraphale had confessed his love for him, at length. He had tolerated, even seemed to enjoy somewhat, Crowley falling asleep on him. There was no reason Crowley should repulse him, was there? But somehow, somewhere deep inside, where all his dreams about what the two of them might get up to with fewer clothes and some Effort from the both of them lived, Crowley was convinced that once it came down to it, once Aziraphale was truly faced with the reality of committing such acts with him, all he would be able to see was a demonic snake. Something not good enough. Something with scales and the wrong amount of limbs and the stench of sulphur clinging to every inch of him. Something _beneath_ him.

-

It was a tense nonversation for a few days. The angel bringing it up, Crowley deflecting as best he could. He had taken to researching new restaurants and old books, anything he could find that would reliably distract the angel from the topic he was with increasing determination attempting to broach. It ended, as it had begun, in the bookshop.

"Why are you doing this?" Aziraphale demanded at last, after Crowley, upon being faced with another attempt at more serious seduction, had produced from some pocket an article on a newly discovered set of prophetic works from the fourteenth century.

"I'm taking an interest in your interests, what's wrong with that?" Crowley replied, misunderstanding on purpose, out of pettiness, out of habit.

"For goodness sake, Crowley, if you- if you don't want me, just tell me!"

Something in the angel's voice cracked, something in his face looked broken, and Crowley felt like someone had punched all of his organs at once.

"Angel," he begun, voice helpless.

"I- I know this corporation isn't what is favoured, not really, not in these times, and if that's your problem, then I... I suppose I understand that. Or if you just don't like that sort of thing then that's perfectly fine, we don't need to, but I would like it if you could tell me so, instead of distracting and rejecting."

Aziraphale's eyes were doing that thing they did, going all big and shiny, making Crowley's heart felt like it was squeezed by a vice. Bottom lip quivering just slightly, brows knitting in upset and confusion. 

"I do!" Crowley argued, impassioned and vague, "I do. Want you, I mean. More than anything."

He longed for his sunglasses. Anything to hide his eyes, hide how they had almost certainly gone fully yellow now. Fully an aspect of the snake, of the demon, of everything undeserving of an angel's love. He could feel the faint itch of scales appearing, hidden, mercifully, by his clothes.

"Then what, my dear, on Earth is the problem?"

"I am!" Crowley near shouted, and immediately regretted it.

Aziraphale looked stricken. Then he crossed the few feet between them, his hands coming up to rest on either side of Crowley's face, forcing eye contact, forcing acknowledgement.

"You are not a problem," he told him, eyes wide and worried and the approximate colour of a storm about to swallow Crowley whole.

"'S not what you said when I bought the wrong tea," Crowley muttered.

Aziraphale looked like he was about to argue, but decided against it, choosing instead to lean his forehead against Crowley's, so his eyes stared intensely into the space just below Crowley's. The breath they didn't need mingled.

"You know I love you, Crowley. You must know I want you in every way you'll have me, surely?"

It was all Crowley could do to remain roughly human shaped. His hands curled into fists at his sides, clenching and releasing, as he tried to think of how he could possibly respond to something like that. What was he meant to say? Yes? Was he meant to agree with a statement so patently ridiculous? Or worse, disagree? And risk the angel thinking better of it? Risk him changing his mind, realising he was far too good for Crowley? No, that was worse, infinitely worse. Crowley was far too selfish to want him to find someone else, someone more on his own level. He felt wretched. Wretched and filthy and full of shame, like he had somehow tricked Aziraphale into this. But he had never really pretended to be better than he was, had he? Had he misrepresented himself to the angel? Let him think he was le-

"Crowley, please!" Aziraphale interrupted, forcing eye contact again, "please say something, my dear."

Crowley remained silent for a moment, hands unfurling, coming up to grip the angel's wrists, long bony fingers around the ethereal softness of Aziraphale's skin.

"Don't deserve you," he murmured, so quietly he half hoped Aziraphale wouldn't hear.

"Nonsense, my dear, sheer nonsense," Aziraphale told him, something breaking in his voice, "you deserve the world."

Crowley didn't know how to deal with this, didn't know how to respond, but in an attempt to be respectful of Aziraphale, of this conversation, of something, he collapsed against the angel instead of collapsing into snakedom. He buried his face in Aziraphale's neck, felt warm and soft arms around him, holding him, gentle whispers of reassurance in his ear. A heart beating for show, almost completely in synch with his own equally pointless one.

"Don't want you to be disgusted with me," Crowley muttered into soft, beige coat.

"Now what in any extant realm makes you think I would be, my love?"

Aziraphale's voice was soft like downy feathers, so careful and understanding that Crowley's stomach turned with the guilt of it.

"'M a demon."

Aziraphale was quiet for a moment, and Crowley tensed every muscle in his body, ready for the agreement, the realisation this wasn't meant to be.

"Crowley, for someone so smart and lovely and perfect, you are really quite dense."

"Gnnh?"

"You know that doesn't make me love you any less, surely? Or want you less? If anything, you being as good as you are-"

Crowley grumbled a protest.

"Well, as not terribly horrifically evil as you are, then, despite your demonic nature, makes your- your lack of terrible violent evil all the more meaningful. It makes your rebellion against both Heaven and Hell all the more brave. You've always been a demon to me- no, not in that way, I mean literally. I didn't know you before you fell. It was a demon I befriended in Eden. A demon I fell in love with, years and years ago. I've had time to come to terms with it, with our differences in allegiance, in nature. And I do not mind in the slightest. I love you. I think you are the most exquisitely beautiful being I've ever seen, whatever shapes you take. Please trust me on this, my love."

Crowley made a helpless whimpering sort of noise in his throat. Aziraphale patted his shoulder reassuringly, and he let his arms lock around the angel's torso, holding on tight.

"You're too good," he told him.

"Well," Aziraphale said, "angel, you know. Rather comes with the territory I'm afraid."

-

The first time they had sex wasn't that same night. It was a week later, after careful conversations and aborted attempts that ended in naked cuddling, efforts never made. They hadn't as such planned that this was the day, but they had sort of felt it. Enough time having passed, enough comfortable intimacy restored. Crowley had very seriously debated covering the bedroom in rose petals and lit candles, but had thought better of it. Open flames in a dusty bookshop was a terrible idea, and the place had already burnt down once, and if he thought about that day too long he had to be a snake for another week to subdue those emotions enough. And his roses hadn't produced petals worthy of being strewn on a romantic bed, and he had given them a proper shouting to about it earlier, but they had yet to rectify the situation. No. Something natural and easy and comfortable was the thing. Comfortable tartan bedding in Aziraphale's preferred colour scheme onto which Crowley had miracled a subtle snake pattern.

They had had a lovely dinner, and some superb wine, and Crowley had made an extremely unsubtle comment about how the bookshop was too cold, and they ought to go up to the bedroom, where it was warmer. If he had been less of a snake he would have winked. And Aziraphale had looked at him with soft and warm amusement, and kissed him, and offered in a suggestive tone sounding faintly ridiculous coming from him that he warm him up. Crowley had informed him he was terrible at flirting and tugged him up the stairs by his bow-tie, to only mild protests.

"You're aware they invented zippers?" Crowley asked pointedly, as he struggled with the far too many layers Aziraphale always wore.

"That was after I bought this suit," Aziraphale said, only a little defensively, and Crowley groaned, because of course it was.

He finished removing the angel's shirt, and started on his trousers. More buttons. Absurd. Ridiculous. Extremely endearing. He focused on the task at hand and not on the pale expanse of Aziraphale's chest and stomach in front of him. There were pink nipples and angel white curly hair and it was still a little too much, though it was not the first time he had been exposed to the wonder that was Aziraphale's half naked body. Giving up on the last two buttons he tugged Aziraphale's trousers down, and his underwear with them, nudging Aziraphale till he lifted his hips so Crowley could uncover him completely. On instinct he flicked his tongue out, tasting Aziraphale on the air, tasting his arousal. He gave an involuntary shiver and a soft noise escaped his throat.

"Is this all right?" Aziraphale asked, hands clasped over his stomach, writhing nervously.

"Only, I didn't know what you would prefer, but I think I would quite like you, ah, in me, you see."

"Nnngh," Crowley replied.

Between Aziraphale's soft, round thighs, beneath white blond curls, was a vulva, invitingly pink and wet and, thought Crowley, just begging for an inhumanly long and dexterous tongue to explore it. He slithered up the bed, nudging Aziraphale's thighs further apart, making room for himself. Inhaled, exhaled, breath ghosting over flesh, making Aziraphale shiver. He let the forked tips of his tongue stroke around Aziraphale's clit, eliciting a delightful noise from the angel. Licked downward, between plump lips, into wetness. Felt hands in his hair, tugging him closer, and made a mental note to grow his hair out so there could be more of _that_.

Crowley could spent decades doing this, he thought, his tongue deep inside his angel, feel him clench around him, rubbing careful circles around his clit, feel they way Aziraphale wriggled around him, wanting him more, and closer. He pulled his tongue out of him to let him know this, to the angel's whined protest.

"Would you allow me?" Aziraphale asked, and Crowley nodded, not entirely certain what he was agreeing to until the angel snapped his fingers in a downward motion, relocating Crowley's clothes to a pile on a chair in the corner of the room.

"Hey," Crowley protested half heartedly.

"Need you," Aziraphale argued, and who was Crowley, really, to protest?

He considered his corporation. Pale. Thin and bony. Freckled in places with tiny black scales. He considered Aziraphale's body. Plump and equally pale and so soft. He frowned in concentration, making a decidedly unsexy face as he manifested what he thought might be a complimentary effort.

"This good?" he asked, voice as neutral as he could make it.

"Very, superb, perfect," Aziraphale enthused, face flushed, pupils blown, "could you, if it's not too much bother, put it inside of me immediately?"

Crowley laughed, part in amusement, part to distract from how violently his cock twitched at the thought. He dove back onto the bed, slotting himself between the angel's legs, leaning down to kiss him. The angel groaned at the taste of himself on Crowley's lips, or possibly at the feel of the demon's hardness dragging against him. His hands were all over Crowley, seemingly at once in his hair and cupping his face and dragging down his shoulder blades, short blunt nails leaving red lines in their wake, grasping at Crowley's ass in an attempt to pull him into himself.

He lifted himself, angled his hips just so, stroked a finger through Aziraphale's wetness and licked it, watching what that did to the angel's face. Then he sank into him, as deep as he could, feel the wet heat, the pressure, the perfect and divine sensation of Aziraphale around him.

"This good?" he asked, hips twitching with the need to move.

"It's everything I've ever wanted. _You_ are everything I've ever wanted. My beautiful, perfect demon, my love, my wily, tempting serpent."

Unable to respond, Crowley pulled almost all the way out, then slammed back in, and was rewarded by Aziraphale making a sort of high pitched keening sound. The angel's hand dug into his back, just where his wings weren't, trying to pull him ever closer. He set a mostly steady rhythm, adjusting the angle based on the sounds Aziraphale made, how tightly he screwed his eyes shut, how sharply the nails clawed into the skin of his shoulders. 

"Look at me," he whispered, so low he thought Aziraphale couldn't hear, but the angel opened his eyes, almost black now with arousal.

There had never been anything more beautiful in the whole of creation than Aziraphale's face at this very moment. Crowley reached down between them to rub uncoordinated circles around the angel's clit, feeling him clench around him, moaning, lips so very pink. He leaned down, capturing that mouth with his own, determined to overwhelm Aziraphale with pleasure. It didn't take long before he felt Aziraphale arch up off the bed, clench rhythmically around him, moaning incoherently, closing his eyes in bliss.

Crowley thrust in one last time, hips stuttering, shaky, and felt his orgasm wash over him. This was, almost literally, what Heaven felt like. It wasn't really, he'd been, after all, and he much preferred this, Aziraphale tight and hot and wet around him, the angel's hands on him, holding him close like he wanted to stay in this moment forever. His face contorted in ecsta- Wait a minute. The angel's face was not contorted in ecstasy, despite Crowley having been assured by several reliable sources that he was excellent in bed.

"Angel?" he asked, still a little out of breath, "Everything- unh. Everything all right? Was it uh... Not good for you? It, uh, it seemed like you, you know. Got there?"

Aziraphale's brows furrowed, his eyes moving back and forth without seeming to see Crowley at all.

"Something's wrong," he said.

"Wha- hey, be careful," Crowley exclaimed as Aziraphale got up, removing himself from Crowley's cock almost violently, getting to his feet, and starting to pace.

"It's- it's bad, it's bad it's-" Aziraphale muttered, running a hand through his hair, eyes big and worried. 

"Angel, hey," Crowley began, getting off the bed now damp with sweat and other, more viscous corporation based liquids.

He put himself in the angel's way, stopping him, hands coming up to cup Aziraphale's face, thumbs smoothing over frown lines. There was something... Something Not Quite Right with his eyes. Some hint of colour other than the usual greyish brown.

"What's going on, love?"

Aziraphale looked distressed, and it made Crowley's heart hurt. It wasn't a face that should ever look distressed, he felt, unless the source of that distress was the inability to choose which excellent dessert to order at a fancy restaurant. He wanted to kiss the frowns away, but that didn't seem like it would solve this problem.

"My wings- they feel wrong, somehow."

"Hey, Angel," Crowley said, catching Aziraphale's eyes -there was definitely some sort of strange hue shift- and making sure he was looking at him, "here's what we're gonna do, right? You're going to get your wings out and I'll have a look, and we'll figure it out together. Sound good?"

Aziraphale nodded weakly, and frowned for a moment, rolling his shoulders as the massive wings manifested on their current plane, knocking a few books off tables. Aziraphale was right. Something was wrong.

The angel's wings, usually a bright, if ruffled white, looked off. Parts looked to be greying, darkening, turning ashen. Some places Crowley could even see little sparks, like they were burning not quite invisibly. Crowley's stomach dropped. He had a feeling he knew what was happening. He might be wrong, though, might be totally off base. Maybe this was a sort of aggressive moulting? His own wings had never moulted, but his snake form had shed its skin a few times. That was never pleasant. Could be something like that, surely?

It wasn't.

Aziraphale craned his head around to look at them, eyes going wide with fear. He looked back to Crowley, pleading.

"Crowley, is- is this- Ow!"

An ominous creaking sounded, like glass just before breaking, like the lines spreading out when you stepped on ice. Heralding bad news.

A circle appeared around Aziraphale's head, a golden thing, spinning gently, emitting a light so holy it burned Crowley's eyes, burnt his skin, too, but no worse than a sunburn. Blacks lines were spreading through it, multiplying, until with a loud crack the halo split into shards. The sharp fragments blackened quickly, more like obsidian, now, than gold. They kept spinning, faster now.

Aziraphale had caught his own reflection in the glass of a cabinet door, and looked stricken, like he only now had fully understood what was happening.

"Crowley... Am I...?"

He looked down, not quite able to meet his angel's eyes, which had now taken on a slight red hue. He nodded.

The angel's wings were a dull grey, now, darkening steadily. Even his hair had begun to go darker, the warm almost white blond now dotted with charcoal strands. He looked scared. He looked so scared, and Crowley wanted to help, but he didn't know what to do, he barely even knew what to feel. Settling for the simplest answer he took his angel's hand.

"It's going to be all right," he said, not quite believing himself, "we're going to figure this out. Angel? I love you, it's going to be-"

He was interrupted by Aziraphale throwing his arms around him (pleasant), which had the consequence of his spinning fragmented halo cutting into Crowley's neck (less pleasant). Ignoring the sharp pain, he held his angel close with one hand, stroking careful fingers across his wings, feeling the sparks, the embers, the small points of white hot fire. They were looking more like his own by the second.

"Angel," he murmured, rubbing little calming circles into Aziraphale's shoulder.

"I'm scared, Crowley," Aziraphale whispered, the words having much the same effect on Crowley's heart as a well placed ice pick would have.

Crowley swore an oath to himself that he would find whoever had made the rules and discorporate them on a permanent basis, even if that was God herself.

"It's going to-" Crowley began to say, but he was interrupted by a flash of blinding white light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know there are some, ah, bad implications of the specificity of Aziraphale's downwards trajectory here, but hopefully they will be addressed and make sense in the context. Any guesses as to the specifics of the changes he's going through? Beyond the obvious, I mean. Also, feel free to follow me on tumblr @indiasierrabravo for a lot of reblogging of Michael Sheen's face and attempts at drawing it.


	6. Interlude, During Which Our Heroes Are Visited By An Apparition, And Promptly Tell It To Fuck Right Off

The blinding light faded, leaving purple and green impressions of the room floating in Crowley's vision, resisting his attempts to blink them away. Something was no right. He squinted at the other side of the bed, across the room from Aziraphale and him, where a pale and blurry shape was in the process of coalescing into the archangel Gabriel. Ah, thought Crowley, shit.

"Aziraphale," Gabriel said, the greeting accompanied by a smile of utter distaste, "and the demon Crowley. I should have expected as much."

"The Arch-Arsehole Gabriel," Crowley replied with a grimace conveying equally unfriendly feelings, and wished he had thought of something snappier.

"Oh," Aziraphale stammered, and Crowley reached for his hand, entwining their fingers.

Gabriel's eyebrows rose, while his smile stayed put, conveying disgust and embarrassment. He looked at their naked corporations, at the efforts they had made, at the thin trail of their mixed fluids running very slowly down the inside of Aziraphale's thigh.

"Revolting!" he announced, his tone bright and cheerful and horrific.

"Gabriel?" Aziraphale asked, voice uncertain, but not quite as much so as Crowley had expected, "what are you- why?"

"You're fired," Gabriel announced with a glee he didn't even bother to try disguising.

"Uh," said Aziraphale.

"We'd gathered," Crowley added, gesturing at Aziraphale's now deep slate grey wings.

"Well," said Gabriel, "you'll forgive me if I don't have the utmost trust in your abilities."

"We will not," Crowley said, but Gabriel just barrelled right ahead.

"What with all the. You know," Gabriel said, gesturing meaningfully at them and the room, or, possibly, the Earth.

"Anyway," he continued, pulling a scroll out of the air and unrolling it, "I'm going to need your signature on these termination papers."

"Oh," said Aziraphale, still sounding lost, like he wasn't quite there, "err, yes, all-right, let me, uh..."

Gabriel shook the scroll out dramatically, and Crowley sensed he used just a little bit of his heavenly powers to make it billow as elegantly as it did, landing perfectly straight and symmetrically on the bed. The angel's eyes glinted a malevolent violet, and his still plastered on smile looked, Crowley thought, exceptionally punchable. 

Aziraphale bent down to sign, his finger making a complex sigil that began like gold leaf and ended in a scorch mark. He made a nearly inaudible whimpering noise that broke Crowley's heart just a little more.

"There," Aziraphale said.

"Uh," Gabriel said, "not quite."

And ten minutes followed of Aziraphale signing away his divine powers and rights on a seemingly never ending parade of dotted lines while Gabriel looked terribly pleased with himself and Crowley found small and harmless objects to toss at him. It was awkward. Gabriel used his divine powers to block the things Crowley threw at him. Aziraphale muttered anxiously to himself.

"Is that it?" Aziraphale asked, having got to the end of the near comically long scroll, ash stains on his fingers.

"Yes," Gabriel confirmed, just a touch of regret seeping into his still smug voice, "that's it. You know, Aziraphale, I always knew you were... _soft_, that you spent too much time down here, but I never thought you would sink quite this far. Literally! We should have pulled you out back in, what was it, 5804?"

Crowley choked back a laugh.

"The, err, the locals call it 1800. Anno domini. But Gabriel, I believe you're wrong."

He looked at Crowley in a way that really rather makes him long for his sunglasses. He can't bear Gabriel seeing the emotions on his face, so he turned to Aziraphale and kissed him. Gabriel made a disgusted noise.

"If loving Crowley is what made me Fall, then not only would I choose it again, every time, but I should have fallen centuries ago."

He says all this with his hands in Crowley's, looking into his eyes as he goes blurry, Crowley's tears obscuring him. He is radiant, then, as much as he ever was. More even, perhaps, than that day in Eden, the state of his halo, his wings, his eyes notwithstanding. More angelic than Gabriel can ever hope to be, however far he will fall. He is above them all, to Crowley. Always will be. A brighter light than any of them.

"Gross," Gabriel said.

"You know, it's almost a pity we have to do this. You really did have potential. But. Oh well. Good luck in Hell."

There was another flash of light, and an unpleasant, cloying stench of lavender, like someone had upended an old lady's perfume shelf and shattered every bottle. Crowley blinked away another set of bright coloured shapes, and sunk, gradually and without intention, to his knees. There was a flutter of feathers and a crackling sound, and when Aziraphale sat down next to him, leaning his back against the bed, his wings and fractured halo had retreated into whatever space their more occult parts occupied when not needed. Crowley shifted, moved so he sat next to Aziraphale, arms pressed against each other. He pulled his knees up to his chest. They sat in silence.

After a while it got cold, and Crowley reached up, tugged a blanket off the bed and draped it over them both. He looks at Aziraphale's face in the waning light streaming in through the ceiling window. His hair has gone entirely grey, now, with streaks of very light grey in places. Once hazel eyes are a cold and very slightly muted red. 

"Aziraphale," he said, and attempted to pour all of his feelings into that single word.

He doesn't get a reply. There were small downy feathers in the no longer angel's hair. Crowley wanted to touch them, to run his hands through Aziraphale's hair, to kiss all the changed parts of him to let him know how perfect and beautiful he still was, would always be. 

"Angel, please," he didn't say. He didn't know whether he could. Aziraphale would, of course, always be Crowley's angel, but it was, perhaps, too soon.

Aziraphale stared at his hands, clasped over the tartan blanket that covered them. Crowley stared at Aziraphale. They remained there for what felt like hours, as the light deepened into the early autumnal night.

At last, after Crowley's knees had cramped up, been lectured by his demonic nature, relaxed, and forgot themselves and cramped up again several times, Aziraphale rose.

"I'm going to bed," he announced, and went to the antique armoire, in search of what Crowley had no doubt were frumpy tartan pyjamas.

"Do you want me to..." Crowley asked, leaving out the key word in the hopes of keeping Aziraphale from asking him to.

"Leave?" Aziraphale asked, turning to glance at him, "no, but could you..."

He made a wiggly hand gesture in Crowley's general direction. 

"Yeah. Course. Anything for you, always," Crowley assured him with a hopeful smile, but Aziraphale's attention had already returned to his hunt for pyjamas.

Crowley crawled up onto the bed, and from there let himself relax, fall back into an easier shape, into something more primal, more natural. He remained a small snake, hardly a metre long, small enough to easily share Aziraphale's not quite large enough bed without touching him, if that was what he wanted. He curled up on what he hoped he would get the chance to come to think of as his side of it, on a soft pillow in a tasteless pattern. He felt the bed dip as Aziraphale sat down, and pulled the covers over himself, a book in his hand. Obviously. Perhaps Crowley would get the chance to give him some introductory lessons on sloth, and the deliciously sinful activity of excessive sleep.

Soft hands grasped at Crowley's coils, lifting him easily, draping him around Aziraphale's neck. Crowley rubbed his cheek against his neck, but remained quiet. If that was what Aziraphale needed right now, it was what he got. He settled in, burying his face under Aziraphale's collar, both for better access to warm skin and to block out some of the light. It wasn't long before he drifted off into unpleasantly stressful dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is short. Apologies for that. But I have work in seven hours and I think this works as a stand alone scene. But I have thoughts, now. Long planned out scenes for later, which involve complaints about snow and me in a fit of horrific nerdiness writing some dialogue in Latin because I am just Like That. So. Apologies in advance. I don't know. I guess there are some people reading this, but as of yet I am just assuming you're all on board with whatever this is.


	7. Let's Go To Hell Right Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coming to Terms with New Situations is like Super Hard

When Crowley woke from his slumber, Aziraphale was gone, and the bed was markedly less warm and comfortable for the loss. He had tucked Crowley in, though, arranging his coils in a tight spiral where he himself had rested, which Crowley could tell from the lingering heat and faint scent. He had also placed Crowley’s head on the pillow, which though not terribly comfortable was extremely endearing. Crowley allowed himself to remain there, flicking his tongue out to taste the scent, comfortable for the solid half minute before he remembered the events of the previous evening. Fuck, he thought. Really very fuck.

The wooden floor was freezing against his belly scales, but he wasn’t ready to change back to his more humanish form quite yet. It had been years since last Aziraphale had told him to change form. Maybe a century. And then, even then, it had been because that fucking purple eyed dickhead from last night had showed up out of the blue for a surprise check in. The angel had argued that a miracle was too noticeable, and that him not seeing his human form lurking in the shop was too unlikely, but that a small snake should have gone unnoticed, however evil, was just about plausible enough. This had happened a couple of times, but the angel had never told him to be a snake just to- just for-. Just because. Or for his own peace of mind. Something. Had Crowley had human teeth at the moment, he would have ground them. As it was he just poked his tongue with a fang, and hissed. 

The flat was empty, which meant that Aziraphale had opened the shop. Crowley hadn’t been sure he would, given, well, given everything, but he supposed it made a kind of sense. If everything else had fallen away, keep up the routine. Do the things that were calmingly familiar, that let him lose himself in old habits. Distract himself with being aggressively unhelpful to customers. Shit. Maybe Aziraphale would really change, now. It had been so long since his own Fall that Crowley remembered very little of his previous life. He had forgotten his name, purposely, so remembering it would hurt less. Forgotten the names of those friends who hadn’t Fallen with him.

Crowley’s Fall had been more violent and dramatic than Aziraphale’s. It had been, after all, a true plunge from high Heaven down, unimaginably far down, into a sea of boiling sulphur. All of them, all the trouble makers, falling like drops of rain, so many were there. That wasn’t to say, of course, that Aziraphale’s had not been traumatic. But different. And more unexpected, really.

Crowley had been different before his Fall, he was reasonably certain of that, but was the reasons for his change the Fall itself, or simply spending time in Hell? Would Aziraphale be spared becoming more evil if he stayed on Earth? Or worse, would he be called Down, to meet with his new employers? Given that they had both considered themselves to be fired after the end of the world, the Fall had been unexpected, as had Gabriel’s appearance with termination paperwork.

A loud bang sounded from downstairs, and Crowley put aside his worries for a few moments, and slithered faster to the open space, to where he could look down into the shop proper. Aziraphale, who was wearing a pair of Crowley’s sunglasses, and looked faintly absurd with them, was talking sternly to a woman who was stood next to a pile of books on the floor, their pages now crinkled and splayed. She seemed rather defensive about her crimes. Rather than paying attention to what they were saying, Crowley slithered his way to that one spot where there was a perfectly placed shelf to drop down onto, and did so, wiggling along until he was right above them. Crowley wrapped the end of his tail through a small hole in the corner of the shelf which had conveniently appeared where he expected it to be, and leaned out as far as he could, till he was just a foot from the woman’s head, and hissed.

“Aaah,” the woman squeaked, grabbing the nearest available object (a heavy atlas), and attempted to hit Crowley with it. 

Luckily his reflexes were excellent, and it just missed him.

“Excuse me!” Aziraphale exclaimed, taking the book from her with a glare.

“Snake!” she half shouted.

“Well, I’m happy to see you can identify animals, but that doesn’t mean you can simply-“

He was interrupted by another loud squeak as the woman, shoving a side table out of the way and sending another pile of books crashing to the floor, ran out of the shop. He sighed.

“Oh, that is going to take so long to tidy up,” he said, shooting Crowley a mournful glance.

Crowley willed his eyes to roll, though they couldn’t, and with an upward flick of his tail the books miraculously straightened their pages and reorganised themselves back into the proper order, though sorted alphabetically rather than chronologically, because he would not condone Aziraphale’s lunatic organisational system.

“Oh, thank you, darling,” Aziraphale said with that excruciatingly lovely smile of his, and reach up an arm for Crowley to wrap himself around.

He slithered along and coiled himself loosely around Aziraphale’s neck, graciously accepting a kiss to his head. Aziraphale, sadly, was wearing his bowtie, his shirt buttoned up proper, as always, and so Crowley to his great dismay could not burrow under it to find warm skin. Well. It was good, he supposed, that he had not given up on his Heavenly dress sense yet. It remained all tones of beige and cream and sky blue. All proper and respectable.

_How are you?_ he hissed.

Aziraphale was quiet for a moment, reaching a hand up to stroke Crowley’s scales.

“I’m not entirely sure,” he admitted. 

He made his way to the back of the shop, weaving expertly between piles of books that seemed to have only the most basic respect for natural forces like gravity, and put the kettle on.

“Want some tea, dear?”

He nodded into Aziraphale’s neck, and watched as he took two mugs out of the drying rack, looking at them for what seemed an unnaturally long time until Crowley noticed which it were. It was a set he had given the angel in the nineties, some tacky souvenir, one white with wings for a handle, the other red and with a devil’s tail for you to hold. It was meant as a joke, but Aziraphale had unironically loved them, the way he did so many things. Crowley remembered the hard spike of adoration in his chest the first time he saw the angel using it.

“Suppose I will have to get another one of these now,” Aziraphale said, gesturing at the red one and letting out a choked noise.

Enough was enough, Crowley thought, and let himself slide down onto the floor, changing back in his human shape in the process, and managing only through infernal intervention not to end up sprawled on the floor. He put his arms around Aziraphale, tugging him close, nudging his face so it rested against his shoulder. Felt tiny spots of wetness against his skin.

“You’ll always be my angel, yeah?”

He pressed a kiss to no longer white curls, felt tiny shakes against him. Aziraphale’s arms clutched ineffectually at the slippery fabric of his shirt.

“Not sure if you want me to call you that anymore, but you are. Whoever, you know, you do or do not work for, technically speaking.”

Aziraphale was quiet a moment, face pressed so tightly into Crowley it was good he didn’t need to breathe. He muttered something that Crowley couldn’t quite understand.

“Here,” he said, helping Aziraphale to sit down on the sofa, “let me fix the tea.”

Ten minutes later Aziraphale had calmed down a bit, and let Crowley put an arm around him.

“I don’t know,” he repeated, “I don’t know why- Why it’s, why I am…”

“Shh, ‘s okay not to.”

“No! No. It’s not, it’s horrible. I’m horrible,” he insisted, looking into Crowley’s eyes with his desperately earnest and unsettlingly red eyes.

“Comes with the job,” Crowley joked with a grin, and then immediately apologised when he saw Aziraphale’s stricken face.

“Joking! Joking. Now tell me, why do you think you could ever be horrible?”

Aziraphale sniffed.

“It’s the way I’m taking this, all the- And you, all this time, and I know! I do know! It just- it’s overwhelming! And I’m so sorry!”

“Uh,” Crowley said, and frowned.

“You know! The way I’ve been, like it’s the Armageddon, like it’s worse, like… Like me becoming like you is a terrible tragedy!”

Ah. There it was, then.

“Angel…” 

“I know, I know, it’s awful, _I’m_ awful.”

“You’re not. Course you’re not. It’s not a fun thing, Falling. I remember. It’s. Well, it’s taking away what you’ve always been, yeah? It’s God saying she doesn’t think you’re good enough anymore. Course you’re upset. I’m still upset about when it happened to me. Not fair, either time. Not fair to cast me out for asking questions, not fair to cast you out for what, expressing love? That’s a shit rule if you ask me. You’re the best angel, best being I’ve ever known, Angel. This doesn’t change that in any way. This doesn’t change anything. Except possibly seeing about getting you some coloured contacts or different sunglasses. Not quite your style, my ones. And as lovely as the new colour is, it does stand out a bit. Course, you could always claim they’re contacts, but you don’t seem the type for that, really.”

Aziraphale didn’t reply, because he had abandoned the remains of his tea in favour of crying into Crowley’s shirt. 

“M afehd m gng tøn nt a bhahd puhpuhn,” Aziraphale mumbled into Crowley’s chest.

“Sorry?”

“I’m afraid I am going to turn into a bad person,” Aziraphale repeated, this time lifting his head just enough for coherency before burying it right back down.

It felt nice to have him this close, Crowley thought, and then immediately felt bad about it. It was nice being able to _touch_. To be able to be physically close, the way he had longed for for so long. And now they were- well. Technically they had been on the same side, their own side, since Armageddidn’t, but if they were both demons, then. Well. Hell did have a no office romances policy, but Crowley was fairly sure Earth didn’t count as an office, and also that they would have bigger problems if Hell came for them.

“You’re not,” he told Aziraphale in what he hoped was a reassuring tone, “Falling isn’t what turns Fallen angels bad, Hell is. Being somewhere so miserable where everyone is competing to be the absolutely worst bastard they can be. Being crammed in next to each other, so crowded you can’t breathe, being punished for anything not sufficiently evil. That’s what makes you go bad. You’re going to stay right here, and you’re going to refuse to sell books, and eat crepes and feed the ducks, all right? I’ll make sure of that. Not going to let them send you down there. Not if I have to murder every demon and angel there is. I’ll fight God herself for you, Angel, you hear me?”

Aziraphale sniffed, and planted a kiss on Crowley’s cheek.

“You’re too good to me, my dear.”

“Course I am. Any amount of good is too good. Don’t tell on me, yeah?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, my dear.”

“Now, being on Earth, that’s what made me… Why I- Well. You know. And you, probably. Bit of an unfortunate influence, you are. But. Point is. My point is. You don’t have to do evil stuff if you don’t want to. Trick is, you see, just being infuriating. Much like your approach to customer service. Wilful unhelpfulness. Malicious compliance. That sort of thing. And even that, I mean. Only for fun, yeah?”

“I’m not sure I share your idea of fun, my dear, but I do appreciate what you’re saying. Perhaps it’s not all that bad. It does feel strange, though. All my eyes are gone.”

“Eye- What?”

“My eyes,” Aziraphale failed to clarify, “they’re gone.”

Crowley’s confusion must have been obvious, because he added “in my celestial form. I could open them before, even if the- the sensory input wasn’t all that useful. I can’t know. Can’t access any other forms.”

“Oh,” Crowley said, and frowned.

“That’s not right. Should be able to access one, at least. Looks like it. Eyes changed. Keep seeing little feathers in your hair, and not wing feathers, either. And hair. Hair doesn’t usually change. Not like colouring correlates with moral status, is it.”

“You mean I can turn into a snake, like you?”

Crowley snorted a laugh.

“Not likely, unless it’s Quetzalcoatl. Most snakes don’t have feathers, angel. My bet is some kind of cool evil bird. Do ravens have red eyes? They’re pretty goth, yeah? Rather hellish, in a cool kind of way.”

Aziraphale frowned.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever looked at them close enough to tell. They’re rather noble birds, so I suppose that wouldn’t be so bad. Wisdom and memory and such. Sensible concepts. How can I tell?”

Crowley looked at him for a moment, looked at the pale red eyes, the dark grey curls, those decidedly not Aziraphale traits mixed into that terribly, wonderfully familiar face. He still looked good. He always would, Crowley thought. No matter what devilish features were added. He wondered, briefly, whether he could get him to wear a pair of those ridiculous devil’s horn headbands. Probably not. Probably too soon by quite a lot.

“Uh,” Crowley said intelligently.

He thought for a minute, hands fiddling with Aziraphale’s, absently stroking fingers.

“You, uh, you sort of. Fall backwards, if that makes any sense? I usually concentrate on the serpentine, on not having limbs, but that’s probably not gonna help you. Uh. Think about wings. Think about beaks? Birds have those, what more do they have. Flight. High bread enthusiasm, you got that one down already. Weird feet. Fea-“

He was interrupted by Aziraphale abruptly ceasing to be human, and instead being a very large bird. It was not a raven. It was far too tall, for one thing, and Crowley was reasonably certain ravens didn’t have red beaks or quite so long necks. Or so upsettingly large feet.

“Whuh,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale, now shaped like a black swan, made an undignified squawking sound.

“Huh,” Crowley said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this during an ill advised night shift so excuse probably spelling mistakes I blame my work's poor keyboards used up all coherency for writing and hopefully end of shift paperwork who knows


	8. Swan in Mourning (of his Connections to the Heavens)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Unintelligible Swan Noises*

Crowley looked at Aziraphale's newly cygnic form, and frowned. Black swan, colouring apart, didn't seem particularly evil, although he had to admit they were fairly bastardous birds. It seemed an odd choice. Well, not choice. Odd animal for it, really. Generally well liked, swans. Not creepy crawly like snakes and eels and flies and the likes. Though to be fair, humans, at least around these parts, tended to look upon many black animals as signs of bad luck. Not great implications of that. It-

"Kchhhhhh," Aziraphale said, somewhere between a wheeze and a hiss.

Crowley crouched down so they were roughly level, looking into a red eye. Aziraphale made a pretty bird, dark charcoal feathers, almost black, but not glossy or iridescent the way his own were. As the swan flapped his wings to gesture incomprehensibly he revealed bright white flight feathers, a striking contrast. Crowley reached out a hand, careful, slow, having been attacked by the oversized birds on multiple occasions for bread-related crimes (swans really didn't like gluten free bread, it turned out, much like humans). He stroked careful fingers along the absurdly long bendy column of Aziraphale's neck. Softer feathers than his own.

"Hey, you're all right. You're all right, pretty bird. You seen yourself? We match now. You got the black and red, just like me," he murmured, not quite sure how much Aziraphale was understanding.

Took time, probably, getting used to such a new and unfamiliar form. Getting used to the senses. Confusing.

"Kchhh shhh khh khhhhhhh khhhh?" Aziraphale wheezed questioningly.

Crowley frowned, needing a moment to decipher the meaning of the choked bird sounds.

"Uh, right. Kind of the opposite process? Just. Dunno. Visualize your normal self really hard, expect to have hands and more leg and less neck, sort of?"

Very little happened to the swan's facial features, due to limitations biology had placed on their expressiveness, but Crowley could feel the frustration radiating off him.

"No hurry, take your time, Angel."

-

Aziraphale was confused. Aziraphale was upset. Aziraphale greatly craved bread. None of these experiences were new to him.

It wasn't something he had expected, this, although he supposed he ought to have. All the demons he had met had some sort of inhuman feature, whether it be an alternate shape or an odd living animal head decoration of some sort. But it felt very very strange. He had taken other forms before, but, being an angel, they were usually less concrete, less realistic, in a way, than this. This wasn't like dissolving into a flaming vortex of eyes at all. It was. Well. It was too _physical_. His feet were large and not entirely suited to walking on floors. His neck was so long, now, and he could turn to look down on his own back, and it made him feel rather dizzy. And yet. It felt more natural, somehow, than the flaming eye vortex business ever had. 

"'S all-right," Crowley was saying, "we'll close up the shop, figure it out. You'll get there."

Aziraphale attempted to say that yes, they would, and that was an excellent suggestion, thank you, would Crowley be so kind as to go and flip the sign over to closed while Aziraphale kept at this, but all that came out was an awkward honking noise. Luckily Crowley seemed to get the gist, and, mercifully without laughing, went to do as Aziraphale had attempted to suggest.

He attempted again to concentrate on himself, which was something he seldom did. Visualising his corporation, as Crowley had suggested, focusing on the experience of having hands and a more sensible leg to neck ratio. Nothing happened. He let out a frustrated hiss.

Aziraphale flapped his wings, and attempted to hop back up onto the sofa. Contrary to his hope and ambition, the wings hindered the process more than they helped, and he wasn't able to get quite far enough up. Oh, to have arms. Oh, to have legs longer than a foot. When Crowley returned a minute or two later he had all but given up, settling for resting the upper half of his neck on the cushions in a stubborn and uncomfortable compromise.

"Oh, Angel," Crowley said, his voice a mixture of fondness, exasperation and poorly disguised amusement.

"Here, let me," he added, and scooped up Aziraphale's avian corporation with a groan of effort, depositing him on the sofa.

He hissed in triumph at the offensive piece of furniture, fluffing up his feathers in what felt like intimidation. 

"Yeah, you'll make a proper bastardous demon, Angel," Crowley said, smirking just a bit.

Aziraphale hissed at him indignantly, but the demon only raised his eyebrows, as if this just proved his point. He huffed, and tried to settle down, feeling a deep unease at the way his legs had to bend in order for this to happen. Perhaps doing something sort of human, like sitting on furniture in a bookshop with a, well, a human shaped being, perhaps it could inspire him.

It took nearly an hour and a half, in the end, and when he finally managed to return to human form it was entirely by accident. He had given up, or at least taken a break, and was laying half in Crowley's lap. He had been petting him, stroking over smooth feathers, and Aziraphale had thought about how much lovelier those hands would feel on skin, and suddenly there he was, human, sprawled awkwardly over Crowley's lap, and entirely naked.

"See?" Crowley said, "not so easy, is it, remembering how much more place your human body takes up?"

"Uh," said Aziraphale, and pushed himself up to his elbows, "where did my clothes go?"

Crowley shrugged.

"Didn't spend enough time concentrating on that bit, huh? Probably somewhere. Don't know. Can you miracle some up?"

"Can I?"

Aziraphale had not yet had time to think about this. He could, of course, no longer access his Heavenly powers, but could he instead pull miracles from Hell? Was he now, technically, an employee of Satan? Were the powers of Hell his? And if so, were they something he would want to use? Of course, they were the same powers Crowley used, and usually not for anything particularly evil. Sometimes he would miracle Aziraphale's cocoa hot again when he forgot it. That didn't seem particularly infernal. Were the powers, in themselves, morally neutral, completely independently of whence they came?

"I mean, you should be able to, yeah? Just. Whatever you did before, but in the other direction, sort of?"

Aziraphale sat up properly, removing himself from Crowley's lap and deeply enjoying the sad little sound Crowley tried and failed to hide making. Clothes, he thought. His clothes. Lovely light creams, subtle beiges, bleached umbers, the blue of a bright, pale sky. He made a gesture, then caught himself, and inverted it. Pulling the power up from Hell. A minute passed, and then another, and then, thump, darkness.

-

Crowley concentrated quite hard on not laughing when, belatedly, the clothes Aziraphale had summoned appeared a few feet above his head, falling onto him. He scrambled to find his way out of the coat over his head, and, seeing he had succeeded, made a triumphant little whoop, which Crowley found quite adorable.

"See? You got it, Love."

Aziraphale beamed at him, and then started to put the clothes on, which Crowley thought was quite a shame. 

"Hey," he said, interrupting, leaning forward to plant a hand on Aziraphale's chest, kissing him.

Aziraphale melted into it, arms abandoning their struggles with shirt sleeves to hold Crowley, one in his hair, the other round his waist. Despite this aspect of their relationship being brand new, kissing Aziraphale tasted like _home_. It felt good, felt right, felt like they ought to have been doing this for the last few millennia. Almost felt like they had. Crowley pulled away from the kiss, just enough so that he could press his forehead to Aziraphale's, looking into those unsettlingly red eyes that still were just as familiar, just as filled with love.

"I love you," he whispered, forcing himself to keep his eyes open as he said it, feeling his pupils spread out and turn yellow, the faint prickle of small scales popping up on the back of his neck.

"And I you, my dearest," Aziraphale told him, his hand moving to cup Crowley's cheek, a finger tracing the small snake tattooed there.

"I feel..." he started, and paused, frowning.

"Yes?" Aziraphale encouraged, and rested a warm hand on his thigh.

"Ngh. I just. Hmm," Crowley continued without much success.

Aziraphale continued to stroke his cheek as he struggled, waiting patiently. He was the one of them who was good with words. Came from all that reading, Crowley thought, that was cheating. Crowley could be good with words too, could be cool and charming and eloquent as anything, just not with Aziraphale. Not with the being he loved and needed more than life itself.

"It's bad," he concluded, frowned, and then continued, "the way I feel? Maybe? I know this. You. Downwards trajectory. Know Falling is terrible, horrific, unfair but I can't help but feel so relieved that we can... That we have. That we get to... You know?"

"I know," Aziraphale reassured, "I'm glad too. That we, you know. That we get to be together properly, whatever unfair consequences it has."

He was quiet for a minute, pulling away to concentrate on putting his shirt on, then underwear, trousers, waistcoat, socks. Crowley just watched, quietly, not quite sure what to say or feel, but being quite content to simply look at Aziraphale lovingly.

"I would have fallen, you know, in a heartbeat. Not that it does. For you, I mean, if I had to choose. If God said you can have Crowley or you can stay an angel. I know- I know I wouldn't always have been brave enough, certain enough. But after everything, I would have. I- Crowley? My dear boy, are you quite all-right?"

Crowley was blinking back tears, and leaned forward, pressing his face into Aziraphale's waistcoat. He nodded, gave Aziraphale a thumbs up, and put his arms around him tightly.

"If you're sure. It's just, I would have liked to have had the choice to do so."

Crowley sobbed noiselessly. Aziraphale's hand rested on the nape of Crowley's neck, rubbing little circles over the scattering of scales.

"Heaven doesn't deserve you," he attempted to say into the fabric, although it came out closer to "Heben doephn dephøv yew."

And it truly did not. How could a being this kind, this full of love, ever deserve to be cast out? The mysterious ways in which God worked were all utter bullshit. Sure, Crowley was bad. He had to be, didn't he, what with all the demonicness, but that didn't mean that he had what? Corrupted Aziraphale? Not for lack of trying over the years, but not this. Not an act of love, although plenty before had been so too. Many of their interactions, really, from all the way back in Eden. An extended wing as shelter, that was love, was it not?

"And Hell doesn't deserve you, my love, it is as you said; we are on our own side, now, whatever we- we are," Aziraphale said, nudging Crowley away enough to look him in the eyes.

"We are," Crowley agreed, "and we will figure this out, whether it means coming to terms with your new employer or yelling at God until She restores your grace. Which, yeah, agreed, probably not that likely, but it's worth a shot, yeah?"

"We shall, as you say, figure it out, my dear. It can't be all bad, Falling. You turned out quite lovely despite it."

Aziraphale beamed at him, and while Heavenly light no longer seemed to lurk in the edges of his hair, glint in his eyes or radiate out from him like his halo, looking at him still made Crowley feel, just a little, like he was being blinded by it. Aziraphale's fundamental angelicness seemed to linger, particularly in his smile, which was, Crowley thought, the only blessing he would ever need or desire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because the latin name for black swan means swan in mourning. Idk man idk about this fic it seemed like such a good concept but I'm not terribly feeling it so much, other than that one chapter I've roughly outlined and largely dialogued in my head. Fic writing always inevitably slows down for me, after that initial burst of writing every day for a month or two. But bright side. finally got to close the google images tab of black swan pictures I've had open for a solid month and a half. My research is simple but very thorough. Hope you all appreciate the amount of time I spent hissing at myself figuring out how to put that noise into letters.


End file.
